The present invention relates to a method and package for controlled metered dispensing of a fluid product contained in the package.
Child resistant packaging is understood to be an important concept for preventing inadvertent access by children, for example, to potentially dangerous liquid or dry products. However, inclusion of the child resistant feature adds difficulty and frustration for the adult user when attempting to open the package. Due to the difficulty in opening child resistant packages, many persons, especially elderly adults who may also have impaired strength and dexterity, could prefer a non-child resistant package substitute. Alternatively, even when consumers purchase products in child resistant packages, the child resistant package may not be re-closed or re-capped in order to defeat the child resistant feature. As a result of packages being left uncapped and having easy access to their contents, the danger of child poisonings and other product misuse may increase.
Examples of such potentially dangerous products are liquid or other fluid medicines from a bottle, which normally require that the administered amount be measured so as to agree with the prescribed amount to be effective. Well known measures are teaspoonfuls, tablespoonfuls, capfuls, drops and milliliters, all of which are simply poured or otherwise dispensed from the medicine bottle. Usually, however, nothing prevents the entire contents of the bottle from being poured out and ingested, e.g., by children or other persons who may not have the mental capacity to comprehend the threat of serious injury from contact with or improper use of such medicines. This problem is not limited to medicines, but also occurs with household chemicals, and the like, packaged in bottles, tubes, cans and similar containers.
A number of packages have been developed which allow a measured dose of product, particularly medicines, to be dispensed from a container. Most of these are particularly designed to yield very accurate doses, which can be selected and adjusted by the user. However, there has been less attention paid to safety, such that the packages can either be opened easily or do not have the means to control inadvertent access to their contents. Where due safety measures are provided, the resulting package is often complicated, expensive and difficult to operate.
The aforementioned problems are generally recognized in the packaging industry and various means have been suggested to overcome them. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,776,494, issued to Holoubek on Oct. 11, 1988; commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,797, issued to Reed on Mar. 13, 1979; U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,553, issued to Weinstein on Jul. 7, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,230, issued to Vierkotter on Apr. 15, 1986; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,762, issued to Zulauf and Griesheim on Aug. 26, 1986. Each of the aforementioned patents discloses metered dosing capabilities. Still other disclosures relating to metered dosing capabilities include U.S. Pat. No. 4,376,495, issued to Spatz on Mar. 15, 1983; U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,305, issued to Glynn and Goldstein on Jan. 7, 1992; U.S. Pat. No. 5,746,349, issued to Putteman et al. on May 5, 1998; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,029 issued to Tong on Apr. 27, 1999. The Tong patent discloses a dispenser particularly suited for toothpaste tubes, wherein a fixed amount of paste flows out of the dispensing spout for each dispensing squeeze of the tube.
Even with the substantial body of work in this area, there continues to be a long-felt need for simple and easy-to-handle packages that allow only a single accurate dose of product, such as medicines and other potentially dangerous products, to be dispensed from a container each time the container is opened.
The present invention provides a method and package, which inhibit inadvertent access to dangerous quantities of potentially dangerous products such as medicines or other household chemicals by requiring the user to repeat one or more deliberate steps before such a dangerous quantity can be extracted from the container. (By xe2x80x9cdangerous quantityxe2x80x9d is meant an amount greater than a single predetermined dose.)
The present invention provides a method for controlled dispensing of a fluid product contained in a package having a metered dispensing system, to a maximum amount of a single metered dose each time the package is uncapped, said method comprising taking one or more requisite steps in order to activate said dispensing system to deliver a next dose, said requisite steps including re-capping said package after dispensing said single metered dose. The present invention further provides a package having a dispensing system for controlled metered dose dispensing of a fluid product, comprising
(a) a container having a body for holding a fluid product and a discharge opening for dispensing said fluid product;
(b) a closure fitted for capping said container and sealing said discharge opening;
(c) a dose chamber in communication with said discharge opening, said dose chamber being capable of metering a predetermined amount of fluid product that can be dispensed from the container after each removal of said closure and having an inlet through which fluid product in said container body can flow into said dose chamber;
(d) a flow control member for regulating the flow of fluid product between said container body and said dose chamber; and
(e) an actuator for triggering product flow from the container body into the dose chamber to provide a metered dose ready for dispensing,
said actuator being associated with or cooperating with said closure.
In use, the package is re-capped after dispensing one metered dose in order to activate the dispensing system to deliver a next metered dose of product.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description.